Normal is a Relative Term
by LaMusica
Summary: Zigzag and Barfbag wind up at the same high school when CGL closes down. Barfbag has a girlfriend and is well-adjusted to the real world. Zigzag on the other hand... He's not so well-adjusted. This is his journey through senior year and beyond. ZOC
1. Brainwashing Serum

**Zigzag's POV: **

Okay, public school. I can do this! They aren't out to get me, like last time. Or, at least, that's what mom (my actual biological mother, not the schmuck from CGL) told me when she dropped me off this morning. Mom had no reason to lie to me! …Except that she probably wouldn't want me to burn another school down….

I can do this. I survived eleven out of eighteen months at CGL (note to self: thank Caveman and Zero for closing it down…), so high school should be no sweat, right? Right.

Aww, shit. Who am I fooling? I can't do this! Every classroom is probably wired so that the alien-infested-humans sitting in the seats of power could learn our ways, spy on us, and squash any conspiracies to get rid of them! I'm _so_ screwed…

Looking back at the spot mom's van had just been, I took a deep breath and marched into the building, hunting for the front office.

The halls and cafeteria were crowded with teenagers sitting in front of lockers, hugging friends who they haven't seen all summer, liaison officers patrolling the campus, teachers fighting to get to their rooms, and a lot of noise. My ears were ringing when I finally found a list arranged alphabetically with room numbers. Okay, room 510. Where the hell is that?!

If only the D-Tent boys were here instead of stupid, overly popular people (cough, Keith Barringer, cough)… Where's Magnet when you need a joke? Or Armpit to clear a path? X-Ray to be the fearless leader? Squid to be a dumbass and take the attention off of me? Even Caveman would be welcome company! Hell, I'd be happy to see Zero, or Twitch.

Suddenly I was lying on my back against _really_ cold tile with a warm weight on top of me.

"Sorry!" it said, getting up and offering me a hand. I took it, since the wind was knocked out of me. I wouldn't do that under normal circumstances… Honest. "Are you okay?"

Hey, it was a girl! I got knocked over by a _girl_? I thought girls were supposed to be tiny and all graceful and shit. There are exceptions to every rule, I guess.

Then, it hit me. I was in a school full of girls. I mean, fifty percent of the population was female! There were girls here… Wow. And suddenly my paranoia was back full swing. What if these girls were working for the alien-infested bigwigs in the office? They could be the means by which every rebellious, free-thinking person was taken away and memory-wiped and brainwashed!

I'd better be doubly on my guard then, lest a _girl_ try to get close to me.

The one who'd run me over looked at me oddly. I've been told that my eyes bug out when I start acting paranoid. (I'm not paranoid, I'm just very aware of my surroundings and the evil plots being hatched.) Or she could be staring at the untamable beast I call my hair. Whatever.

"Are you alright?" she repeated, picking up my backpack and handing it to me.

"Yeah, fine. Thanks." There. I didn't give any clues that I was onto the conspiracy to take over the world starting with the public education system.

"You seem kinda lost. Where's your advisory?" she asked, fiddling with a necklace.

"Uh…" To tell or not to tell, that is the question. "Room 510." Okay, befriend her and maybe I can un-brainwash her! That would be one more on my side, making it two against… an infinite amount of people.

"Really? Me too. I'm – "

"Callie!" someone yelled. The voice was vaguely familiar.

"Louis, my man!" she shouted back, hugging… Barfbag? "How's life been since I last saw you?"

"How long has it been?" he joked, making her chuckle lightly.

"Barfbag?" I asked.

He looked at me. "Ziggy? Holy cow, man! I see you finally got outta CGL. How?"

"Stanley Yelnats IV, or Caveman, and Zero. Some prissy lawyer came and shut it down with a ton of charges, after sassing off at the Warden. It even _rained_ there!" I grinned, reliving those first moments of freedom. Totally sweet…

"Damn! I missed that?" he laughed, just picturing it, I could tell. "So, what's your advisory room?"

I told him.

"You and Callie are going to the same place then. I've got the choir room." He shuddered.

"It's not that bad," Callie reprimanded. "Just because the head director has a mullet – "

"A what?" I asked, incredulous.

"A mullet. He's had it for the past seventeen years, and sometimes I'm afraid that his kids were born with one too!" Barfbag said. "Anyways, Callie King, meet Ricky Kasch. He was one of my tent mates at CGL. We called him Zigzag, or Ziggy, depending on what he did or said. Ziggy, this is Callie, my girlfriend's best friend. She's cool, so don't freak out, okay?"

Barfbag knew me too well. I was glad for the reassurance, but didn't really lower my guard or anything. For all I know, she'd brainwashed him and took to the Dark Side. I wonder how many cameras and microphones were in my classes. Hopefully I'd get the rooms that They felt it unnecessary to tap. With my luck, that wouldn't be happening.

The bell rang, and the mindless masses began their treks to… wherever they were going. Barfbag, or Louis as I should probably start calling him, waved and walked to (what I assumed was) the choir room.

"Come on, I'll show you where we're going," Callie said, taking my elbow and leading me down a long, smelly corridor with windows – _glass_ windows – lining one side of it. Vending machines were positioned against the other wall between trophy cases and big, double doors.

She pointed out the auditorium/ stage area, the big gym, the small gym, the pool and led me up a flight of stairs. At the top, we passed a weight room, locker banks, doors labeled "Girls' Dressing Room" and into room 510.

"Welcome to the dance room," she said, opening the door for me.

There was one wall full of mirrors, another with bars running across it, two offices and two storage rooms at either end. The room itself was huge and filled with girls _and_ boys.

I sat against the mirror, reveling in the coolness seeping through my shirt. Ever since CGL, I've been a faithful worshipper of air-conditioning and cold. It's been two months since we were all released, I was almost finished with my community service, my tan's held, and when I shower, some dust still came out of my hair. Scary, right?

"So, how long have you known Barf – Louis?" I asked, figuring thee was no harm in (subtly) pumping her for information.

"Since he and Bri started dating, so… about three and a half months. You?"

"Longer than that. I think it's been a little over a year. I'm guessing you're a senior?"

"Yeah," she laughed. "That's very astute of you."

I _did_ pick up on the sarcasm.

"I try," I said right as a tall, muscular lady with really dark brown hair came in, followed by a tinier, blonde, pregnant lady. Each had a bunch of papers in their hands, and asked their separate 'advisories' to gather.

Callie and I obediently moved to the other side of the room with the dark-haired lady.

"Okay, I'm Mrs. Singleton, the new dance teacher and Celebrity director here. Only a few of you have to deal with me after school, so the rest of you are lucky."

The twenty or so teens chuckled politely.

"When I call your name, please come up here to receive your schedules and the district-required forms to give to your parents."

Blah blah blah. The list went on and on, and I took this opportunity to scrutinize every one of my classmates. I had to figure out who to avoid, who had un-brainwashing potential, and who might be working for the CIA or FBI. There was one kid I thought had escaped from Area 51 or something…

"Richard Kasch." I got up and got the necessary forms before sitting back beside Callie and zoning out.

"Dale Kassinger." Hah. It would suck monkeys to be named Dale. I got back into the zone.

"Callista King. Oh, hey Callie!" Mrs. Singleton chirped. She seems like a nice lady, the un-paranoid part of me sighed.

"Hi, Mrs. Singleton. How's the baby doing?"

"Good, Lacei's as well as can be expected. Tim hired a nanny to take care of her while we work, and is still spoiling her rotten! I'll see you at practice?"

"Definitely." And Callie was by my side again, folding her long legs all gracefully and stuff.

"You're on the drill team, or whatever?" I asked with my eyes closed.

"Yeah," she laughed. "I thought you were asleep!"

"Nope, just in the zone, _Callista._"

"Well, I guess I'd better be more careful in my assumptions, yeah, _Richard_?"

"Yeah, Callista." I smirked.

'_She's fun_,' Sane-Ricky thought.

'_**Yeah, but one of **__**them**_,' Insane-Zigzag replied.

She stole my schedule from my hands and was comparing it to her own, or so I thought. I was kind of, sort of, maybe _just a little_ hoping that we'd have a couple of classes together, not that anyone needed to know that. Well, if she said anything, I'd just go with the flow…

"Hey, we have Pre-Cal, Choir, lunch, and English together," she exclaimed. The surprise was _way_ evident in her voice. I laughed at her enthusiasm – on the inside. On the outside, I just grinned.

"Cool."

I felt Callie tense as she shoved my paper at me before she got up and went to talk to another really skinny girl. They were wearing the same shirt (red and black with a black picture of some chick doing a high kick that said 'Celebrities' – not that I'd noticed or anything).

'_Why did she leave_?' I wondered. '_Did she not like me? Maybe she suspected that I was onto the whole Take Over the World gig. But she didn't give me that vibe. Callie just seems like a normal seventeen-year-old trying to survive another first day of school, like me, but saner.'_

She came back over to me, lost in her own thoughts, or – judging by the big yawn she'd just covered – exhausted. I'm glad that Callie didn't notice that I stared at her the entire time. She pulled out an MP3 player and ear buds, offering one to me.

I declined.

"What am I supposed to call you, Ricky, Zigzag, Richard? What?" she asked, making eye contact.

"Ricky or Zigzag work. Never, ever call me Richard, unless I call you Callista, okay? I hate it." I hadn't noticed until then that her eyes were green and brown and gold with really dark lashes. Right now, they were more brown and gold, but I bet they switched with her mood.

"Cool. Can I play with your hair?"

I shrugged, not pegging her as the kind to stick a brainwashing serum into my skull. Whether I liked it or not, Louis' confidence in her was inspiring me to trust her. Weird, huh?

"Here, lay your head in my lap." I did as Callie directed, closing my eyes was her tiny hands buried themselves in my hair. "It's so soft… I'm a hair, arm, and eye person. Right now, you're number one on the Awesomest Hair List."

I chuckled at her joke, too relaxed to worry about the physical contact. "Do you know how long we're gonna be in here?"

"Until ten at the very least. Nine-thirty if we're lucky." She has a pretty voice, probably a soprano in choir. Watch me be right.

Her fingers gently tugged at my scalp as she brushed it to either one side or the other. I didn't particularly care if it made the blonde mess messier, just as long as Callie realized that she couldn't tame the untamable. It was pointless, and I speak from experience. My mom can back me up on this, too.

Ooh, now I've brought a parent into the situation! It's bona fide, one hundred percent. Who's good? I'm good, that's who.

* * *

Should I continue this story? Let me know, please!! 


	2. Talking Traffic Cones

Okay, I apologize for not writing more sooner. Thank you to those who've read and reviewed chapter one. Believe me when I say it gives me the warm-fuzzies inside. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Ziggy, or Barfbag, or the Celebrities (the drill team), or the choir director's mullet (thank God!), or anything else Holes related.

* * *

**Zigzag's POV**

So around eleven o'clock, the bell rang to release us from advisory. In the four hours we'd been stuck in there, I ascertained that Dale Kassinger (who has some freaky Darth Vader fetish) was indeed an escaped experiment from Area 51. Seriously. The guy is loud, and shouts out theories on how and why Darth Vader was framed. I rest my case.

I also determined that this other kid – Jacob – has awesomely awesome hair. It's all curly and red – Ronald McDonald red. And the curls aren't, like, frizzy afro curls. They're all silky and spirally and stuff… Now _I_ sound like the one with the fetish.

Ew.

Callie is really cool. She was running her hands through my hair and massaging my scalp for the better part of an hour and didn't try to inject any weird brainwashing serums into my skull. And the massaging thing may sound queer, but don't knock it till you try it. She's got really talented hands.

We even talked a lot. It was cool.

We were just sitting there, me with my back against the mirror (every time my spot got too warm, I move to another cool, unoccupied one) and Callie lying on her back beside me.

"So, what's your story?" she asked me.

I quirked an eyebrow (yeah, I know. I've got skill.) "What do you mean?"

"Why'd you get sent to CGL?" she asked. "I mean, Louis told me why he went when we met. He also told me all the shit they made you guys do," she rambled.

"Hey Motor-mouth. Be quiet and I'll tell you," I offered jokingly, but not the mean-joking.

Callie blushed and swatted my arm. A moment passed in silence. She arched her eyebrows impatiently. "Well?"

"Okay, okay. Pushy… So, do you know Keith Barringer?"

"Yeah, the jerk from my algebra class last year… I hated him so much."

Surprised, I nodded. "Me too. Anyway, back freshman and sophomore years I was really short and skinny – the perfect bully magnet. He'd do the usual: swirlies, stuff me in a locker, knock the books out of my hands, and trip me on the stairs. I've always been a little "paranoid" as my shrink termed it. He made me even paranoid-er… Eventually, it got to the point where I couldn't stand it any more and so, I burned my school down."

"It wasn't this school… Oh! You went to Creek freshman year, didn't you?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"After the fire, all of Creek's students got zoned over here. Now that the repairs are done, they're only accepting freshmen and sophomores," she told me.

I nodded, finally understanding the whole reason I was at a brand new place. A new place with leaders I still hadn't figured out yet. There was this one lady who was short and fat and had really doughy skin and bad clothes. Callie had referred to her as a "walking, talking traffic cone." I bet she's one of the leaders of the Take Over the World gig. She just screams "BRAINWASHER!"

See? She just screams it.

"What's your favorite color?" I asked randomly. The question popped out of my mouth before the word vomit filters were engaged.

"Green. If you could have any birthday cake, what kind would it be?"

Ooh. Good one. "A white-on-the-inside, buttercream icing with a picture of the Power Rangers airbrushed on it kind of cake." What can I say? I was deprived as a child.

Callie laughed loudly. "You're a true child of the nineties," she said, still laughing.

"Okay, fine. What kind of cake would you have? Something 'pretty' and 'sophisticated'?" I asked with mock-irritation, smiling. She has a nice laugh…

She snorted. "No. The same kind as you, except, instead of Power Rangers, I'd have a 'Beauty and the Beast' picture on it."

It was my turn to laugh. As I did so, she turned an unattractive shade of red.

I received another smack to my arm. "Shut up. I was raised on Disney – you should see my mom's office, it's theme is Mickey Mouse down to the mouse pad – and 'Beauty and the Beast' just happens to be one of my favorites."

Okay, I'd better stop laughing. She's getting defensive.

…Any minute now, I'm going to stop, I swear.

Here's the bet: _**Insane Ricky **_thinks this is just going to keep going, unending and Callie's going to hate me forever. He places five dollars on it. _Relatively Normal Ricky_ thinks Callie may find the situation amusing and join in the laughter. He meets _**Insane Ricky**_'s bet of five dollars.

Or you know, I'll just keep going and going and going and going and…

Ha! I win! Callie just joined me in laughing at herself. I owe myself five dollars.

Is that even possible?

Oh God (not that I necessarily believe in God), am I paranoid _and_ schizophrenic to boot?!

Shit. Now I'm going to get even more therapy…

* * *

That's the end of chapter two. About Ricky not necessarily believing in God:

We all have our own individual belief system based on our own particular religion – or lack there of – that we follow. I'm just expressing Ricky's particular beliefs and God is not one of them.

That doesn't mean _I_ agree with him. Ricky is an entity of his own, dwelling within the dark recesses of my mind. I believe in God, I'm a good Christian girl, and I wear a cross to express my personal beliefs.

And no, I'm _not_ trying to push people to one religion or another. Look to the First Amendment of America's Constitution for my reasons why. That, and I'm just not like that.

Okay, I'm off the soapbox.

Aside from my rant, I hope you enjoy this installment. I don't know when the next one will be out. I'm working on two other stories on my other account because those are pretty much consuming my mind.

If you want to check them out (one is Phantom of the Opera and the other is Pirates of the Caribbean) let me know and I'll tell you the s/n.

Thank you very much to everyone who's reviewed and read and enjoyed. I luv ya!!


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